


We Begin To Falter

by pansexualorgana (MaximumMarygold)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Horror, M/M, Modern Fantasy, Monsters, Vampire Roy Mustang, Vampires, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:20:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27057856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaximumMarygold/pseuds/pansexualorgana
Summary: Ed snorted, “What? Like a fuckin’ werewolf?” He’d expected a round of polite chuckling followed by literally any logical explanation.Of course, the universe in it’s Fuck Edward Elric campaign, didn’t deliver.“Exactly like a werewolf,” Mustang said, and the quiet confidence in his voice made Ed want to believe him, even if he was speaking nonsense.“Werewolves don’t exist, bastard,” Ed argued.Mustang shared a look with Knox; long suffering and maddeningly amused, “Is that so? Well, it looks like the werewolves didn’t get the memo.” The amusement dropped, “However, werewolves shouldn’t exist inside of Central. That violates The Accords. And attacking a human? That could start a war--”“I’m fucking sorry,” Ed interrupted, not sorry in the slightest, “but what the fuck are you talking about?”Knox’s eyes rolled towards the ceiling, “Aw, hell,” he said, with feeling.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Comments: 35
Kudos: 152





	1. wanna betwitch you in the moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> happy halloween motherfuckers 
> 
> lowkey based on a prompt I saw on tumblr

There were very few things in life, death, or anything in between that could frighten a seasoned morgue verteran -- Dr. Knox had seen it  _ all _ , especially since Roy Goddamn Mustang had started treating him like his own personal physician and coroner. 

He had to admit, however, that he wasn’t prepared for the young man he was about to slice into to suddenly gasp in a huge breath and sit straight up on the table. Considering the procedure he had been about to perform had been an  _ autopsy  _ and all. 

The kid -- because, Christ, he couldn't have been more than twenty -- looked around, unusually bright golden eyes keen and sharp, leaving no room for interpretation; he was taking in everything he saw and analyzing it within an inch of its life before coming to his conclusion.

“This is a morgue,” he said, reaching up to his throat with a wince; which, yeah, he sounded a little like he’d been gargling with gravel, but to be fair he’d been  _ dead  _ thirty seconds ago, “What the  _ fuck _ ,” the kid voiced Knox’s sentiments exactly, his expression had settled into something that looked remarkably like vague annoyance until he looked down at his chest and the five jagged, diagonal slash marks that had landed him on the slab in the first place, “ _ What the fuck _ ?”

“You said it, kid,” Knox needed a drink; he needed  _ several  _ drinks, “what the fuck happened to you?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Only the slightest edge of hysteria had managed to creep its way into the kid’s voice, “I’m the one who woke up in the  _ morgue  _ with some  _ psycho  _ holding a scalpel to my ribs!” 

“You were  _ dead _ ,” Knox threw his hands up, “no pulse, no oxygen, no brain function. The police brought you in two nights ago, you should just be grateful I’ve been so up to my neck in other work that I didn’t get around to you until now!” To prove his point, he reached down and ripped the tag from the kids metal - _ Jesus-  _ toe, “Edward Elric,” he read, “age twenty-two. Really? A little small, aren’t you?”

Another thing he hadn’t been expecting; five-foot-six of angry blonde zombie kicking him in the shin and storming from his morgue with the sheet wrapped around him like a cape. 

To quote said zombie:  _ what the fuck _ ?

  
  


Eventually, and despite his better judgment, Ed stuck around long enough to let the scalpel wielding slasher villain clean up the gouges in his chest, since evidently renewed blood-flow meant renewed bleeding and no one had bothered to wash the old blood off of the dead kid anyways. 

To Ed’s untrained eye, the wound looked more than two days old. Two  _ weeks _ , maybe. Healed over enough internally to no longer be life threatening but still scabbed over and angry looking. 

“Are you sure you don’t remember what happened?” SWSV asked; he was on the other side of the room, rifling through an old locker for a spare set of clothes that Ed could wear home; while he wasn’t paying attention Ed had snagged his scalpel and shoved it under his metal thigh  _ just  _ in case.

He seemed legit, as far as doctors went, but the fact remained that Ed had woken up after, apparently, being declared dead and languishing inside of a drawer for two days, with a chunk of his memory missing and he was not going to trust fuckin’ anyone he didn’t already know.

“The last thing I remember was walking home from the university.” He’d worked late at the lab, later even than usual; it was almost midnight by the time he’d finally called it a night. 

It was cold, threatening to snow. He’d decided to cut through the park, since it shaved two minutes off of his commute even if it was creepy as fuck since no one had ever bothered to fix the lights that had burnt out two summers ago. 

He wasn’t paying attention; not really. Al was reading him the riot act over text for ‘disgracing their ancestors with his disaster of a sleep schedule’ and he was finding it very hard to craft responses through a pair and a half of mittens.

He was close, though, to the street that Al and his flat was on. When he looked up, very briefly and through the dark smudge of his eyelashes, he could just see the glow of the streetlight that hailed Flamel Square; the literal light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

Around him, though, in the tunnel proper, the only light was his phone screen.

And then.

“I tripped,” he said, blinking for the first time in too long. He’d been staring at his hands; the heel of his right palm was scabbed over. He’d caught himself, “I forgot about the missing stone on the walkway and my boot caught. I tripped and landed on my hands and knees. My phone-- it broke. It was dark, I coudln’t see a fuckin’ thing.” Automail fingers flexed, the fluorescent lights above his head catching the metal and shining, “I--”

Heard something. He’d heard something. It sounded like. Breathing. But wrong; too heavy. Almost  _ panting _ . 

Something clicked on the stone. He whirled around but he couldn’t  _ see _ because his phone was broken and no one had fixed the  _ fucking lights _ \-- 

The panting was closer. Hot breath fanned across his face. It smelled  _ vile,  _ like old blood and death. Something large and heavy slammed into his side; he hit the ground, his head bounced off of the walkway. Stars burst behind his eyelids. 

He opened his mouth to yell. 

And. Nothing.

“I was attacked,” he said, brows furrowing, looking up, “by an animal? But it. It wasn’t an animal; it was too big. It was the size of--”

“A man,” a new voice answered and Ed’s brain started doing cartwheels -- he couldn’t breathe.

He remembered -- he  _ remembered,  _ after. He was staring at the sky; the clouds had moseyed their way along. He could see the moon.

He couldn't move. None of his limbs would cooperate; flesh or metal. He couldn’t do anything; just lie there and try to haul air into his lungs. But every breath was wet and rattling; all he could taste was blood.

What had  _ happened?  _ Nothing hurt; he felt frozen, numb, but he knew, he fucking  _ knew  _ he was dying. Distantly, he recognized that the growing warmth beneath him was his own blood. That he was bleeding out, alone, in the middle of the night, on the goddamn sidewalk.

But he didn’t. Care.

Couldn’t care. There wasn’t enough strength left in him to care. 

A clatter to the side and he almost laughed. Maybe whatever had done. This. To him had realized that he wasn’t dead after all and had come back to finish the job. It took a lot of effort and a very strongly worded email correspondence between his brain and his muscles, but he managed to turn his head.

Well, turn was a strong word. It was more of a slight nudge and then a drop. A loll, if you will.

The clatter turned into footsteps -- different ones than he’d heard before. The footsteps paused for several seconds that felt like centuries, and then they got faster.

Whoever owned the feet had seen him, and they were running towards him. 

He wanted to tell them not to bother; it was too late. He was as good as dead already and it probably wasn’t a pretty sight. They should save themselves the nightmare and take the long way home. 

But every attempt at speech ended in a rasping cough and more blood flecking his lips.

“Shit,” the person had reached him; they crouched down.

Cold fingers trailed down Ed’s cheek; it felt nice. He closed his eyes.

“No!” A light slap, “No, don’t you dare close your eyes. Stay with me!” 

Ugh, why? That was so much effort. He’d much rather just sleep, thank you. But the voice left no room for argument; it wasn’t a request, it was an order and Ed pried his eyes open just so he could glare at the fucker who thought he could order him around  _ on his actual deathbed _ .

In the pale light of the moon, Ed could just make out a little bit of what the bastard looked like. Dark hair, dark eyes, a very serious expression on his face.

He kinda wondered what his frown tasted like.

But there was no time to find out.

Because he was, ya know, kinda in the middle of dying. Man, all of the hot ones really  _ were  _ taken, straight, or only showed up when you’d been murdered. Where was the justice in that?

From seemingly nowhere but logically, probably, the pocket of his very warm looking coat, the stranger had pulled a phone and --oh, he was calling for an ambulance. That was cute.

Didn’t the guy know a lost cause when he saw one?

Must have been one of those ‘glass half full’ kind of assholes. Which, unless said glasses were half full glasses of Ed’s rare blood type ( _thanks dad),_ was going to do exactly fuck all to keep Ed alive.

Which he was alright with, really. He’d done a lot in his relatively  short  not very long life. Al would be okay; he had friends and Winry to watch out for him, and he was a competent little shit on top of all of that. He didn’t need Ed, anymore. 

And Ed was tired, really. A nap didn’t sound so bad. 

And what was death, really, but a very long nap?

He could get down with tha-- 

A sharp, stinging pain in his neck took him by surprise. He didn’t feel the fatal wound that was going to kill him, but he could feel -- what the fuck, was the guy  _ biting him _ ? Because that was definitely hair in his face --soft, silky hair that smelt like fancy shampoo and smoke. The guy had leant down and  _ bit  _ him?

Of all the perverted fuckers who could have stumbled across him. Fucking great. 

The perverted bastard pulled away, his lips stained with blood. With  _ Ed’s  _ blood. Blood that he’d officially lost too goddamn much of because his vision was starting to swim. His eyes closed as the world started to spin. 

There were sirens. Ed could hear them, though his brain didn’t process what they  _ were _ . 

The last breath didn’t even hurt. Ed just exhaled and that was it. He didn’t even register that it  _ was  _ the last breath, even though it wasn’t, since he was sitting up and staring at the weird fucker who had  _ bitten him _ . 

Which should be addressed, actually, now that he thought about it. 

“You!” Ed pulled his knees up onto the well loved and abused sofa, tucking the sheet he’d stolen tighter around himself since he was  _ naked,  _ “You bit me!” 

SWSV spun to face the stranger, a red sweatshirt clutched between white knuckled fingers -- his nametag said  _ Knox _ where it swung against his chest. Maybe if he kicked the pervert out Ed would start to use it. One gesture of good will to another.

“You did  _ what _ , Mustang?” Knox hissed, “Have you  _ lost  _ your fucking--”

“He was dying!” Perverted Stranger argued, gesturing to Ed like he wasn’t sitting six feet away, perfectly sentient and definitely not-dead, “What was I supposed to do?”

“If your first instinct when you find someone who has just been  _ murdered  _ is to bite them you have got problems, bastard.” Ed said from his cotton-blend burrito, “ And for your information, since it seems to have escaped you, ‘he’ is right here and would like to know what the fuck you meant when you said a  _ man _ . Also his name is Ed and he’s not exactly known for his  _ patience _ .”

Mustang (who was still a pervert, but no longer a stranger) snapped his fingers -- Knox winced, for some weird fucking reason, “That’s right. Edward Elric. I knew you looked familiar. You’re the prodigy that Central University snatched up.” 

“If me actively bleeding out on the ground bares enough resemblance to my faculty ID photo I’m going to have to physically fight the photographer,” Ed responded dryly, “I’ll fight you too if you don’t stop stalling, bastard. I just said I was attacked by an animal, and you said it was a man.”

“Technically,” Mustang crossed his arms over his chest -- they were nice arms, Ed noted distantly, almost clinically, to be filed away and processed at a later date when the world maybe made a little more sense, “I just finished your statement, which was that it was something the  _ size  _ of a man.”

Smarmy motherfuck-- “Does this look like it was done by a man to you?” Ed hissed, shrugging the sheet from his shoulders and letting it pool around his hips. The room was colder than he’d thought, and he regretted shedding his make-shift cloak as soon as he did it. 

The reaction from Mustang, however, was right on point. 

He paled, his throat working hard around a swallow that Ed pointedly did not watch very closely. “It does not, no.” He said after a long pause, “But, Ed Who Is Not Known For His Patience,” Ed was  _ going  _ to kill him, “how many animals do you know of that can reach the size of what attacked you  _ and  _ can create that wound pattern.”

Fingers ghosting along his own chest, jaw clenched tight against the hiss that threatened to escape the cage of his teeth, Ed looked away, “So if it wasn’t an animal and it wasn’t a man… What was it, then?  _ General _ ?” Because Ed wasn’t the only one who had been in the papers, and Mustang wasn’t the only one to read them.

General Roy Mustang, age thirty-six. Notorious womanizer and hero of the Ishvalan war. He’d been the mastermind behind the coup that had outed Fuhrer Bradley as an irredeemable piece of  _ shit  _ and removed him and a huge chunk of his supporters from power. 

“A little bit of both, I’d hazard to guess.”

Ed snorted, “What? Like a fuckin’ werewolf?” He’d expected a round of polite chuckling followed by literally  _ any  _ logical explanation.

Of course, the universe in it’s Fuck Edward Elric campaign, didn’t deliver.

“Exactly like a werewolf,” Mustang said, and the quiet confidence in his voice made Ed want to believe him, even if he was speaking nonsense.

“Werewolves don’t exist, bastard,” Ed argued.

Mustang shared a look with Knox; long suffering and maddeningly amused, “Is that so? Well, it looks like the werewolves didn’t get the memo.” The amusement dropped, “However, werewolves shouldn’t exist  _ inside  _ of Central. That violates The Accords. And attacking a human? That could start a  _ war _ \--”

“I’m fucking sorry,” Ed interrupted, not sorry in the slightest, “but what the fuck are you talking about?”

Knox’s eyes rolled towards the ceiling, “Aw, hell,” he said, with feeling.


	2. castle of wonders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> behold the halloween fic that didnt even get its second chapter til after halloween 
> 
> whatever this year is bullshit and time is an illusion

Al arrived in a flurry of disheveled honey hair and manic hazel eyes ringed in bags so starkly evident they were practically  _ designer _ . Turns out that, while Ed had been declared dead and identified by the state, no one had bothered to call his brother. 

It wasn’t so much dropping the ball as it was throwing it up into the air and spin kicking it over the edge of a cliff and into the rocky abyss of a rolling, angry black sea. 

“Our tax dollars at  _ fucking  _ work,” Ed hissed, his face pressed somewhere in the general vicinity of Al’s collarbone while his younger half attempted to crack all of his ribs in one fell swoop. 

He felt more grounded, with Al there. Less like he was about to float away and disintegrate into dust motes.

“Sounds like you made a friend, General,” drawled the sauntering man in military blues who had led Al into the room; somehow, the unlit cigarette settled haphazardly between his lips didn’t fall as he spoke.

“General?” Al asked, and Ed didn’t need to see his face to know  _ exactly  _ what his expression looked like; over the years his baby brother had amassed an exceptionally extensive repertoire of ‘ _ my brother is a menace to society _ ’ looks, glances, and grimaces, “Is my brother in some kind of trouble? I had wondered when Lieutenant Havoc came to collect me but then he brought me  _ here  _ and I feared the worst.”

“Being dead is not nearly the worst thing that has ever happened to us,” Ed pointed out, forehead remaining glued to Al’s sternum, where he was safe and the world made sense, “being dead was practically a  _ vacation _ .”

“Why are you speaking like you have first hand experience? Where have you been for the last two days?  _ Why is your hair matted with blood _ ?” 

The questions came rapidfire and without pause for breath -- not that Ed could exactly blame him. Were he in Al’s position he would have burnt down half of Central before his brother had been missing for more than a day. By the forty-eight hour mark he probably would have marched himself into Fuhrer Grumman’s office and demanded a task force to find him. 

“I was… uh… kind of attacked by a werewolf.” Pressed so close, Ed could feel when Al stopped breathing, “I’m okay!” He pushed back, lifting his hands and wiggling his fingers as if to prove his point, “All in one-- well, in no  _ more  _ pieces than I was Friday morning.” 

“You did die, though,” Knox pointed out, settled behind his desk with a mug of heavily spiked, vaguely coffee adjacent sludge.

“ _ Excuse me _ ?” 

Ed sent the doctor the most demonic ‘ _ i will rip out your spleen, season it with your bone marrow, and then feed it to you’  _ look, “I was going to get to it.”

“When?” Knox asked, sardonic, “When you give the best-man speech at his wedding? Rip the band-aid off, kid, we’ve got bigger problems than your brother’s blood pressure.”

“You died,” Al said faintly, “you  _ died _ . But you’re here.”

“Yeah,” Ed responded, “it didn’t stick,” he turned to glare at the bastard blood-sucker sulking in the corner, “turns out a vampiric good samaritan stumbled across me as I was bleeding out on the sidewalk and decided to have a midnight snack.”

The soldier who had brought Al in and had moved to lean against the far wall to steal a smoke, had to quickly fake a coughing fit to hide his snickers.

“ _ I saved your life _ ,” Mustang stressed, “vampire venom has healing properties. If I hadn’t bitten you then you really  _ would  _ be dead.” He mumbled something else that sounded a lot like ‘ _ ungrateful brat _ ’ and Ed was a third of the way through the excessively deep breath needed to screech indignantly when Al made a noise like he was the one dying.

“I need to sit down,” said Ed’s sweet baby brother, collapsing gratefully into the squeaky, rolling chair that Knox kicked towards him; it huffed like a deflated whoopee cushion under his weight, “someone explain what the  _ heck _ ,” fuck, the kid was so pure, “is going on. From the beginning, preferably in fluent Amestrian with minimal input from the peanut gallery.” Ed opened his mouth, “Yes, Ed, that’s you.” Ed closed his mouth.

Amestris had a long and bloody history of war mongering and straight up colonialism -- everyone knew that, despite the propaganda they were force fed from primary school until they entered the collegiate system (or had the common sense to pick up a book and form their own opinions). 

What everyone  _ didn’t  _ know was that the skirmishes, under their false cloud of patriotism, were just the latest in several centuries of rivalry, contention, and outright feuding between the Covens (vampires) and Packs (Lycans). They’d been at each other's throats since longer than most cared to remember and showed no sign of stopping, until Bradley was ousted.

The former Fuhrer was an instigator of the highest degree, sending troops, who had  _ no  _ idea what they were getting into, into battle for the sole reason of wiping out the few remaining Packs in Amestris.

The Ishvalan Genocide.

The incident in Liore. 

Fotset.

Pendleton.

Reole.

Briggs.

All orchestrated by Bradley, all under the guise of civil wars and border skirmishes. 

After the coup, when Bradley was dead, his followers were imprisoned, and Grumman took charge, things started to change.

The Accords were written. Laws were put in place to protect the Packs, to stop what Bradley had done from ever happening again. Troops were sent back to help in the rebuilding efforts of every civilization the former regime had tried to eradicate.

“But you said wolves weren’t allowed in Central,” accused the peanut gallery, earning himself an exasperated sigh; honestly Al should just be glad he’d stayed quiet as long as he had, “how does forced segregation benefit the Packs?”

Mustang winced, “The Accords are not perfect,” he admitted, “there was a lot of compromising involved. Some of the higher ups are slightly biased.”

“You mean they’re all vampires and are racist as fuck,” Ed translated; he turned to Knox, eyebrows raised expectantly, “and where do you fall in all of this?”

“I’m a doctor,” Knox replied flatly, “overworked and underpaid, especially since this one decided to drag me into all of his bullshit,” he jabbed a thumb in Mustang’s direction. 

“He was the doctor assigned to my unit in Ishval,” Mustang said, and his voice had gone quiet, his eyes a million miles away, “I trusted him then, I trusted him during the coup, and I trust him now.”

Something in the doctor’s expression softened and he crossed his arms over his chest, “Don’t get gushy on me, Mustang. There is a rogue wolf in Central that attacked a human; how the fuck are you going to spin this?”

“Easily,” Mustang sighed, exhausted and long-suffering, “I’m going to keep it to my damn self. At least until we have more information.” He leveled both Elrics with a  _ look _ , “I’m sure we won’t have any leaks, will we?”

Ed squawked in outrage, “I was the victim!” 

“Of course we’re not going to tell anyone, General,” Al sighed, rolling his eyes, “as long as you let us help with the investigation.”

Mustang’s eyebrows hit his hairline; both of them, none of that  _ look at me! I’m so cool! I’m only going to lift one eyebrow because you’re not worth the energy of doing both  _ nonsense. “Pardon?” He asked, like there was any chance he had misheard Al’s perfect voice.

“We’re trained combat alchemists,” Al started before pausing with a wince and an apologetic look towards his brother, “sorry, I am a trained combat alchemist. Brother is an expert at hand to hand and close range weapons, as well as the single most brilliant theoretical alchemist in the country.”

“How does one become a theoretical alchemist?” Asked Mustang.

“Easily,” Ed mocked, “I can no longer do alchemy but that doesn’t mean my brain turned to fuckin’ sludge. I still know how it  _ works _ , even if I can’t activate the arrays myself,” he shrugged and jabbed a thumb in Al’s direction, “child labor.”

Al turned to his brother, leveling him with the best ‘ _ Why Are You The Way That You Are’  _ expression in his rolodex of exasperation, “Really?” 

Ed shrugged again. In his mind Al was still twelve; and always would be. That was his sweet, innocent, perfect baby brother and he would hear nothing to the contrary.

“That’s all well and good,” said Mustang, with the air of a man who was about to say the wrong thing in the presence of said sweet, innocent, perfect baby brother and thus get his ass handed to him; Ed decided to sit back and watch. 

Given his volume, expressions, and general Ed-ness, people always, always assumed that Ed was the brother that they needed to be afraid of. People always, always assumed  _ wrong _ , and it was  _ always _ , always an absolute joy to watch. 

He wondered if Knox had any popcorn stashed around his office; or maybe he’d just share his booze. Ed was cool with either because no matter how uncouth Al claimed it was, it was always more fun to watch his brother tear someone a new asshole with some kind of snack at the ready.

Sidling up to Knox’s desk as Al smiled, sweet as pie, at Mustang, Ed nudged the doctor with his flesh elbow, “This is gonna be good,” he whispered.

“It’s been a while since I’ve watched Roy be eviscerated,” Knox agreed without an ounce of sympathy; he reached into the top right drawer of his desk and retrieved a bottle of cheap whiskey, pouring a splash more into his mug before passing it off to Ed, “I don’t have any glasses.”

Ed snorted, “Have you seen my day? I am  _ way  _ passed glass.” As he took a long pull from the bottle, he heard the first of what promised to be many concerning noises from Mustang. “Whiskey and a show,” he sighed appreciatively, leaning his hip against the desk, “things are looking up, Doc.”

The soldier who had found Al,  _ Havoc _ , found his way over to the other side of the desk and made grabby hands for Ed’s pilfered whiskey.

He handed it over because hell, he was a nice guy like that. 

The Verbal Flaying of Roy Mustang went on for so long that Knox took a little ( _ just  _ a little, he assured Ed) pity on the man and texted someone named Maes Hughes to ‘ _ Kindly get your whipped ass to my office ten minutes ago. And give Gracia my love. _ ’

Ed snickered into the bottle when the man responded with nothing but a line of heart emojis. 

Maes Hughes, it turned out, was the head of Investigations, Mustang’s best friend, and  _ such a dad _ Ed thought he was going to die.

He arrived dressed in a pair of pajama pants covered in rainbows and kittens with nails painted a brilliantly sparkly pink and immediately started showing Ed pictures of his  _ very  _ cute toddler, Elicia. 

“Roy needs to have his ass handed to him every once in a while,” Hughes said sagely, “keeps him humble. Also, extremely entertaining.” 

Not being able to argue, and not particularly wanting to in the first place, Ed just nodded and traded his bottle for another stack of pictures. 

“I like you,” Hughes decided, taking a large swig without a wince and settling back to watch Roy squirm while Al smiled pleasantly and didn’t break a sweat, “I assume he’s your brother?”

“Yeah,” Ed nodded, smiling down at one of the few pictures that actually included Hughes in them; Elicia sitting on his shoulders and holding an ice cream cone that was dripping into his hair while they both beamed at the camera, “He’s terrifying when he goes off on someone and on the rare occasion it’s not  _ me  _ I really like having a front row seat.”

“Amen to that,” Knox saluted with his mug, “it’s time to cut him loose, though. Maes, if you’d be so kind.”

It took Al approximately zero time to switch his attention from Mustang’s several new orifices to Hughes’ pictures. How quickly he went from murder to cooing over a two year old was honestly one of the most impressive things Ed had ever seen.

Then it was time to explain the whole fucking mess to Maes; because apparently ‘keeping it to his damn self’ didn’t include Maes Hughes. 

“Are you two married?” Ed asked with an arched eyebrow; he’d seen Hughes’ wife, Gracia, in many of the pictures but he wasn’t discounting polyamory just yet, “Because this is some shit Winry and Paninya would pull.  _ I’ll take this secret to my grave, just let me tell my wife real quick _ ,” Ed thought his Winry impression was getting better even if Al’s expression told him that if she ever heard it he would be in for a world of hurt. 

Hughes laughed good naturedly and threw an arm around a thoroughly castigated Mustang, “No, no,” he said, “unfortunately I am heterosexual. It’s terrible, really.”

“My condolences,” Al said, “I am also heinously straight and I never know how to help Brother with his boy problems.”

Ed’s cheeks caught fire and he waved his hands through the air almost frantically, trying to keep his eyes off of Mustang (the fuck, did the guy have a gravitational pull that only effected eyeballs?), “Because I don’t  _ have  _ boy problems, what the fuck Alphonse!”

A disbelieving --and very rude-- arch of Al’s eyebrows told another story entirely and Ed was going to murder the little shit and then celebrate becoming an only child. 

“You seem to have at least one,” Hughes said, motioning to his chest, “has anyone considered the implications of Edward surviving being mauled by a werewolf? And then being bitten by Roy?” 

All of the oxygen seemed to have been sucked from the room because, no, they  _ hadn’t _ . At least, Ed hadn’t. Ed had been a little focused on first: the part where he’d been  _ actively  _ (passively?) dead, and second: the fact that werewolves and vampires existed in the first fuckin’ place.

Looking from Knox, who had gone suddenly, suspiciously still, to Mustang who seemed to be even paler than he had been before, Ed figured neither of them had either.

“Define  _ implications _ ,” he demanded to Hughes, metal fingers gripping the edge of Knox’s desk so tightly that the wood started to squeal in protest.

“You could have been turned,” Hughes said, very calmly, too fucking calmly.

At least if he’d been a little louder about it Ed could have missed the sound of his world crashing down around him.

“Turned?” He said faintly, “As in, I could be a werewolf?”

“It’s a possibility,” Hughes confirmed, “not a certainty. They only got you with their claws, which isn’t a guarantee of infection. Not like a bite.” He gave Mustang a severe look, “And I know Roy was only trying to help and absolutely tried his best but there is also a chance of--”

“I could be a werewolf  _ or  _ a vampire?” Ed eyed the amount of whiskey left in the bottle before snatching it from Hughes and downing it. 

He couldn’t handle this shit. There was a line, okay? There was a line and it was  _ pretty far  _ back, considering all of the shit he and Al had been through, but this was way, way passed that line. This was a football field away from the line. This looked at the line and  _ laughed _ .

Actually, someone was laughing.

It was him. He’d started laughing. And once he started, he couldn’t stop. His knees finally gave out and it was only the fact that he was already holding onto the desk with his metal hand that let him slowly lower himself into the tile rather than collapsing there in a completely undignified puddle of hysteria. 

Fuck.

_ Fuck _ !

What the goddamn motherfucking fuck was he supposed to do, exactly? If he’d been turned by the wolf who attacked him, would he be allowed to stay in Central? His whole life was there; his  _ job  _ was there. Would Al have to chain him to the goddamn radiator once a month?

And what if he’d been turned by goddamn Mustang? Saving his life his  _ ass _ . Could he survive on animal blood or would he have to eat humans to stay alive? Could he use blood bags? Did Mustang have a supplier at the hospital he could hook him up with?

What a fucking mess.

“What a  _ fucking _ mess,” he whispered to the darkness surrounding him; he’d apparently closed his eyes at some point. When he opened them again, the light was almost too much but it was nothing compared to the weight of everyone’s concerned stares; Mustang had even moved to crouch next to him, one hand on the small of his back like he was trying to help keep him upright. 

“We’ll figure it out,” Al promised, grim and determined, “we always do, Brother.”

They did, in fact, always figure shit out. He had a point. 

“Is there a cure?” Ed asked, blinking up at Mustang, trying to clear his blurry vision; shit was he about to  _ cry _ ? Edward Elric get your shit together. 

“There is,” it was Hughes who answered, “but you’re not gonna like it.”

“What is it?” 

Mustang sighed, too close to Ed’s ear. He had to suppress a shudder at the sudden burst of cool air against his skin, “You have to eat the heart of whoever turned you.”

This time, Ed felt the laughter bubble up. He did nothing to stop it, instead chuckling wetly as he turned to fully face the vampire, “And if you turned me?” He asked.

“I’ll hand you the knife.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sup ily
> 
> blah blah my tumblr is pansexualorgana come say hi [here](https://pansexualorgana.tumblr.com/)


	3. big fire big burn into ashes and no return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yall i still cant believe you like this?? i cant believe anyone likes any of my shit but like, yo
> 
> anyways glad you do, i love and appreciate you very much glad we had this talk
> 
> heres a chapter that's like almost as long as the rest of the whole fic

Not to be overly dramatic for what was ostensibly the first time on record, but this was probably the worst week of Ed's life. 

First: he gets attacked by a werewolf.

Second: he dies.

Third, and worst: Roy Mustang would not get the  _ fuck  _ out of his classroom.

It was hard enough to keep twenty college students' attention for an hour and a half when there wasn't a very famous, very distracting, arguably very attractive general in the back of the room.

“Undergrads!” He barked, startling at least four of his students so badly they almost fell out of their chairs -- serves them right for staring dopily at General Pain In His Ass instead of paying attention to his  _ fucking  _ lecture, “Your attention; reign it in.”

The undergrads did not, in fact, reign in their attention and Ed was annoyed enough about it that he dismissed class early and added a pile of absolutely useless homework to their upcoming weekend. 

Usually, Ed abhorred busy work with a passion generally reserved for milk, milk products, and those dumb enough to say anything about Al that was less than  _ complete  _ ass kissery. 

Ed was, however, nothing if not extraordinarily flexible and you know what they say about desperate times and all that. 

As the last student scampered from the room like a chastened puppy, Ed turned to Mustang with his arms crossed and his most formidable frown creasing his face. 

"Well?" He demanded, "Do you have a decent reason for completely screwing up my lesson plan for the rest of the semester?" Because that was a thing he had to worry about -- lesson plans, getting his grading done on time, learning the finer points of Microsoft Office and bullying his projector into behaving. 

And funnily enough, he was  _ fine _ with that. He was  _ thrilled  _ to be a fuddy duddy who spent his weekends in the corner of his sofa, whining at Al until his brother made him tea or got him a snack because if he moved he would never be able to get the heating pad back exactly in the right spot on his shoulder blade. 

He'd had his adventure getting Al's body back; he didn't need any more goddamn excitement in his life. 

Let him stagnate in peace.

"I'm sure you'll recover," Mustang responded dryly, "Cancel your last class."

" _ Excuse me _ ?" Ed really, really fucking hated that he had to look up to glare into the bastard's eyes and he wanted it in writing; but he had to meet his eye or the other man may somehow miss the part where Ed was actively attempting to rip his soul out through his retinas, “Who the hell do you think you--”

“We have a lead on the person who attacked you,” Bastardus Interruptus, “and your brother insisted you both be a part of the investigation. So, cancel your last class; you have other places to be.”

Gritting his teeth against the urge to use them to rip out Mustang’s (long, pale, kind of low-key edible ironically enough) throat, Ed settled back on his heels and lifted his chin defiantly, “Fuck you; your lead can’t wait an hour?”

“My lead might have left by the time we get there since I was kind enough to wait for you to dismiss  _ this  _ class,” Mustang looked unbothered but Ed could see the muscle in his jaw twitching as he clenched it, “so no, Edward, it cannot wait.”

“Motherfucking motherfucker in a motherfuckin’ fuckin mother of a bastard ass whore--” Ed about-faced, hoping almost desperately that the end of his ponytail wacked The Bastard (™) in the  _ face  _ as he stomped to his desk to retrieve his coat and bag -- he’d email his students on the way. “Let’s fucking go then.”

“Such language from one so sma--”

Mustang seemed like the type of asshole to be prepared for just about anything -- the whole, Vampire, General, Coup Planning aspect of him was put together impeccably, nothing at all like Ed’s fragile mask, held together with scotch tape and eyelash glue. 

He didn’t, however, prepare for Ed to lunge forward,  _ over _ the final desk, and pin him against the wall, his metal forearm pressed unwaveringly against his windpipe to keep him still. The gobsmacked expression coupled with the knowledge that he had been able to break through that veil of nonchalance had Ed grinning almost ferally, all teeth and no mirth.

“Don’t,” he hissed, pressing just the tiniest bit harder against the bastard’s throat, “call me small.”

Gathering the shambles of his control, Mustang smiled thinly and reached up with both hands to grab Ed’s shoulders; a moment later Ed’s back hit the stone with enough force to shove the air from his lungs; the wounds on his chest had mostly healed over (too fast, too fast,  _ too fast _ ) but they still shot dull throbs of not-quite-pain radiating down his spine from the impact.

“Don’t,” Mustang started casually, his eyes flaring a bright, dangerous blue that made Ed lose his breath all over again, “try to use  _ breath control  _ to get a vampire’s attention,” he was too close; Ed could smell his cologne, “we don’t breathe, Edward.”

At the fucking moment, neither did Ed. Fuck, could the bastard move the fuck away, just a little? If he didn’t breathe then why the hell did his cologne have to smell so good? Bastard. 

A moment passed, and then another, with neither of them willing to move. Moving was submission; if Ed moved was conceding and if Mustang moved he let Ed go. It was the definition of a Cretan Stand-Off. 

Like the time that Al had set Ed’s text notification to the sound from  _ Grindr,  _ so if Ed texted him while he was in public, he could take count of who looked up in confusion and use it for a fairly accurate Gay-Head-Count. 

“I just want you to find someone,” Al had said, frowning innocently, as if he was going to use his newfound knowledge to hook Ed up with some random guy in the supermarket.

_ Yes, hello sir. I see you like papaya! My brother  _ **_loves_ ** _ papaya! And you may be wondering why that matters, but you see, my brother is gay, you are objectively attractive, and I am a scheming schemer who schemes and will surely send him to an early grave. Are you free on Friday? _

On one hand it was a terrible idea -- on the other Al was the purest goddamn being on the planet -- and there in the middle was Al’s knowledge that Ed thought it was a terrible idea, but Ed knew that telling Al that would make him sad and Al knew that if he changed the sound Ed would  _ feel  _ terrible. Both of them knew all these things and so, six months later, the tone had remained the same because neither of them could stand to upset the other.

Ed, thankfully, hadn’t had a blind date come out of it yet but there was a low level of constant dread prickling the base of his neck every time he had to text his baby brother.

This was a lot like that, except for instead of being concerned about upsetting each other, Ed and Mustang were actively trying to glare the other to death.

Mustang had the advantage, with the scary vampire eyes, but Ed felt like he had a leg up in sheer venom. 

Plus, The Bastard (™) hadn’t gone for Ed’s throat like any fucker who knew who, exactly, they were dealing with would have; instead keeping one arm pressed against his clavicle like a vice. It made sure he couldn’t move, but it didn’t stop him from talking.

Leaning his head back against the wall and forcing his body to relax, muscle by reluctant muscle, until he was loose limbed and lazy, he raised an eyebrow at Mustang in challenge, “What?” He asked, “You gonna kiss me or something, General Bastard?”

Ed had expected him to reel away in disgust and keep his goddamn hands to himself for the rest of their, hopefully brief, acquaintance. Mustang, because he was a bastard, chose differently.

Trust him to, in a multiple choice test where both answers were the same, write in  _ none of the above  _ instead.

If Ed thought he was close before, it was nothing compared to when he leant in until their noses were scant centimeters from brushing and that stupid,  _ stupid  _ fucking cologne was all Ed could think about. It clung to his sinuses and curled like smoke around his brain until he was dizzy with it.

“The fuck are you doing?” He managed, trying not to wince at how rough his voice was; like he’d spent the last hour actively gargling gravel. 

“You asked me a question, did you not?” Mustang’s head tilted the tiniest fraction of a bit and a slow smile stretched across his lips, easy as hot taffy, “Didn’t you want an answer?”

_ Yes _ , Ed’s brain screamed, some part of him  _ clawing  _ at his throat to make him answer the affirmative, to keep egging Mustang on, to practically  _ dare  _ him to kiss him. 

“It was rhetorical,” he said instead.

Smile melting into a satisfied smirk, Mustang brushed their noses together once, “Pity,” he said, and then he was pushing away before Ed had a chance to even try and work out what the fuck he meant by  _ that _ . “Let’s go, then.”

If Ed had been expecting that the daze he’d been in would fade as he followed Mustang numbly from the science building and to his car --a sleek, black model that Winry would probably drool over but that Ed couldn’t hope to identify beyond the fact that it was, in fact, a car-- he would have been sorely disappointed. However, Ed had learned long ago that the universe hated him and he would never luck out on anything, ever, so long as he drew breath, and he hadn’t expected jack shit.

In fact, it was  _ worse _ because if the scent was strong on Mustang it was overpowering in his  _ car _ . Ed may have actually whined as he reached for the button that controlled the passenger side window.

“Christ, Mustang, how much cologne do you have to wear for it to fuckin turn your car into an atomizer?”

Mustang, who had just put the car in reverse and twisted himself in his seat to look behind them, paused and turned to Ed, blinking slowly, “What are you talking about?”

“What? Now you don’t speak Amestrian? Your cologne, jackass, or aftershave. Whatever. The car reeks of it, how the hell could you possibly not smell that? I thought vampire senses were strong as fuck?”

“They  _ are _ ,” Mustang said, “which is why I don’t wear cologne. Or aftershave. Hell, even my  _ sunscreen  _ is unscented.”

Because vampires had to wear sunscreen to be active during the day, which would never stop being hilarious or  _ so Ed thought  _ because right that second it was the exact opposite of funny. 

“Oh,” he had to swallow twice to get past the lump in his throat, “my mistake then. Al must have changed fabric softeners and not told me again.”

_ What the fuck? What the  _ **_fuck_ ** ?

_ The Devil’s Nest  _ was a bar in downtown Dublith -- Ed had probably passed it a hundred  _ thousand _ times as a child. It was walking distance from Curtis’ Butchers. 

After spending close to two hours in a small, confined space with Mustang, using all of his formidable brain power to only breathe through his mouth because even with the window down the smell was  _ everywhere _ , he very nearly dove from the car. 

“You didn’t tell me we were coming to Dublith,” he accused, trying to pretend he wasn’t basically gasping in the frigid fresh air, “I could have had Izumi meet us here.”

“Who?” Mustang asked, caution practically seeping from his general… everything.

Ed’s phone was already dialing, “The scariest woman you’ll ever meet,” he said, before the line picked up.

_ “Curtis’ Butchers.” _

“Sig! Hey, it’s Ed. How’s Teacher doing?”

_ “Ed? _ ,” Sig was concerned but not necessarily unhappy, which was expected and valid,  _ “Are you okay? Alphonse called us on Monday and said you’d been attacked.” _

Of course Al had called them, the little traitor. 

“Oh, yeah. I’m alright, a little sore but nothing too bad,” a few feet away, leaning against the side of his car, Mustang snorted. Ed frowned and flapped a hand at him, “That’s actually why I’m calling. I’m working with… a friend. We have a lead on the guy who did it -- thought Teacher might want to come and put the fear of Housewives in them.”

He could see Mustang mouthing the word ‘housewife’ to himself silently and smirked; the bastard had no idea what was coming. 

_ “I’ll ask her, hold on a moment.”  _

Sig set the phone down and Ed listened to his muffled footsteps as he walked away, presumably towards the bedroom where Teacher was having a lie down. He leant his back against the dirty brick that made up the outside of the Nest, blinking lazily up at the sky. 

Waiting.

_ “Edward _ ?” Something in him loosened when he heard her voice; it wasn’t even a little hoarse which meant she hadn’t been coughing too much. She sounded strong. 

“Teacher, hi!” He couldn’t stop the grin, or the warmth in his voice if he wanted to. He didn’t, so it worked out well, “You feeling Froggy today?”

_ “I hate that term,”  _ she scolded; there were two quiet thumps as she toed on her shoes and gently kicked the floor to settle them, he’d seen her do it a hundred times, “ _ but yes, I’m on my way. Where are you _ ?”

The lack of questions made Ed want to vomit rainbows and kittens. He needed her and she was going to be there for him. There wasn’t going to be a discussion. “I’ll text you the address.”

It took Izumi less than fifteen minutes to arrive; when she did she found Ed arguing loudly with a man dressed in the uniform of a Military General and opted, again, to act first and then ask questions and Roy Mustang found himself flat on his back before Ed could do more than open his mouth in greeting.

“Oh. I should have mentioned; Teacher hates the military.” 

The look Mustang sent him could have turned stone to glass but Ed was too busy being smug to really care. 

Izumi looked back at him; she was still crouched over Mustang, holding him firmly to the ground with one hand on his chest -- Ed knew from personal experience that it was almost impossible to get away from that hold without at least straining a rib or four, “Edward,” her voice was impossibly warm for a woman who had just drop kicked a decorated officer, “good to see you.”

“Backatcha,” Ed’s grin just kept widening, “how’s business been?”

“ _ Edward _ ,” Mustang grit out and Ed watched him flinch when Izumi’s attention was wrenched back to him, her eyes pinning him to the ground as surely as her impossible strength.

“Fine, fine, I’ve had my fun. Teacher, you can let him go. He’s uh… he’s the ‘friend’ I mentioned. He’s not really a friend but it was the best word I could think of.”

Izumi scowled, first at Mustang, then at Ed, then back at Mustang, “The  _ Flame Alchemist? _ ” She asked, so distasteful her words actually sounded green with disgust, “I thought I taught you better than this.”

“You did. I can’t stand the bastard, but I kind of need him. It’s his contact in the bar.” It wasn’t… entirely true. Ed  _ could  _ stand Mustang. In small doses. If he didn’t speak. Or distract his classes. Or  _ bite him while he was bleeding out _ .

Rising to her feet easily and leaving Mustang to pull his ass up off the ground, Izumi crossed her arms, “Alright. And while we’re at it, why don’t you tell me exactly what happened.”

“I got attacked and --”

“Absolutely not. The full story. I know when you’re lying, you little brat, I goddamn raised you.”

Mustang choked on the air he didn’t breathe, “This is your  _ mother _ ?”

Ed flinched; Izumi’s hand landed on his shoulder like it was a reflex, “My mother died when I was five,” he managed, “Izumi and her husband and the Rockbell’s took Al and I in after. Izumi taught us alchemy.” He paused, “And how to make a killer meatloaf.” 

Huffing out a small laugh into his ear, Izumi squeezed his shoulder once before letting go, “The secret is love,” she said sarcastically, laughing louder and brighter when Ed rolled his eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” Mustang said after a moment, his voice was quiet; Ed almost didn’t hear it, “about your mother.”

Ed shrugged, heat rushing to his cheeks; don’t ask him why he was blushing, he didn’t fucking  _ know _ . “Don’t get mushy on me, Bastard. Let’s just talk to this guy -- you said his name was Greed?”

“He leads the local Pack,” Mustang confirmed, “but before that he was a part of a bigger one that were hidden in Central -- part of Bradley’s bullshit. He went rogue from them before anything came to a head. He’s smarter than the others.”

Bradley had a Pack’s support? “Why the hell would a Pack support  _ Bradley _ ? You said he was a racist asshat.”

“I don’t think I used that exact turn of phrase, but yes. I did and he was. He just promised them something they wanted more than they hated him.”

Ed waved a hand in the universal gesture of  _ go the fuck on _ . He’d never had the patience for dramatic pauses.

“Bradley had them under the impression that he could procure them a Philosopher’s Stone.”

The blood drained from Ed’s face; beside him, Izumi sucked in a harsh breath through her nose. “The Philosopher's Stone is a myth,” he said, which was again, not exactly true. The stone was real -- but with a price that should never be paid. 

Mustang sighed and started towards the door, pausing only when he was shoulder to shoulder with Ed, “I think you and I both know that isn’t true. Fullmetal.”

Ed’s heart  _ stopped _ \-- Even the throbbing of his blood in his ears going completely silent.

_ Fullmetal _ .

Nobody knew about that -- nobody except for Al. Fuck, he hadn’t even told  _ Winry _ and he definitely hadn’t told Izumi. He hadn’t had the urge to be completely eviscerated. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the denial was barely more than a croak, but it was the best he could do. 

“I’m not stupid,  _ Edward _ . Or is William Hoenheim your real name? I couldn’t figure out which was the alias.”

“Ed?” Izumi was deathly quiet, “What is he talking about?”

“Nothing,” snapped Ed, “he’s got me confused with someone else.”

He didn’t; he had Ed pegged. He knew his  _ whole  _ game. Ed didn’t fucking know how -- he’d gone through hell to cover his tracks. He’d  _ burnt off  _ the fingerprints on his left hand, dyed his hair dark, tinted his eyes to hide their distinctive Xerxian hue. 

They’d run into a wall, looking for the stone, a way to get Al’s body back. The only way Ed could get passed it was to wiggle himself through the cracks and into the ranks of the military. He’d taken  _ every  _ precaution. 

William Hoenheim should never have been able to be traced back to him; he’d even checked the surname before he’d used it. He needed something he wouldn’t forget but not something so unique it would be recognizable and traced back to him. Hoenheim was a surprisingly common last name, especially in the South, near the border of Aerugo. 

It happened to be his useless garbage pile of a father’s first name, so he wasn’t likely to forget it and William was the most basic of basic bitch names. 

“Don’t  _ lie  _ to me, Edward,” Mustang growled; he reached up and Ed flinched, thinking he was about to be struck, but instead the other man just reached out with one gloved finger and spun a lock of Ed’s bangs around it, surprisingly gentle, “You may have hidden this, but how many people do you know with an automail right arm and left leg?”

Flinching again, Ed curled his shoulders inward. Shit. Shit, shit, shit,  _ shit _ . “Plenty,” he said, which actually  _ wasn’t  _ a lie; he’d met tons of people with automail while visiting Winry.

“It was odd, when the letter of condolence we sent Hoenheim’s family was returned because the address listed  _ didn’t exist _ , but no one thought too much of it. I certainly didn’t, I’d never met the man. They say he was eighteen when he enlisted but you were closer to fourteen, weren’t you?”

_ Fuck _ .

“Thirteen,” he rasped, studying the concrete beneath his boots, “I was thirteen. Fourteen when my C.O. saw me doing alchemy and got me transferred into the State Alchemist program. I didn’t even get to take the exam. I would have failed on purpose if I had the chance.”

Beside him, Izumi gasped, “ _ Edward _ \--”

“I should have told you,” it was easier to look at Mustang that it was her, but he forced himself to meet her gaze anyway; he’d lied to her about so much, the least he could do was  _ look at her  _ while he finally told the truth, “I should have-- I didn’t have a choice, I needed to get into the library. I tried breaking in but I almost got made before I could get my hands on anything. I…” 

“You joined the military?” He’d never seen Izumi cry before; not even when she’d seen Al in the armor or Ed’s missing limbs and realized what they’d  _ done _ , “Is that where you were? Those few years when we couldn’t find you?”

Ed could only nod. He’d kept a low profile, so much as he could, in the military. If there was an increase in vigilante activity wherever he happened to be stationed or sent then, well, they could never pin anything on him. 

“As soon as I got the information I needed I… I faked my death. Well, William’s death. It’s amazing what a little bit of graverobbing and one localized explosion can do.” 

“That’s when you turned up on my doorstep,” Izumi was thinking out loud, her eyes a million miles away, but at least she’d stopped crying, “God, Ed, we thought you were  _ dead _ we--”

“I was worse than dead,” Ed scoffed, “I was a cog in their military machine. They tried to strong arm me into doing things that I… I couldn’t.”

“Quite a few trains broke down conveniently whenever you were supposed to be transporting Ishvalan refugees to the camps,” Mustang noted casually, “and some cities out West are still whispering stories about the Crimson Coat, a vigilante who, coincidentally, seemed to follow Hoenheim around.”

“ _ Stop _ ,” Ed gasped, scrunching his eyes shut, “saying that name. We all know it was me, now, okay? Call a horse a horse,  _ Mustang _ .”

“Very funny.”

“Why the hell did you have to bring all of this up  _ now _ ?” Because what the  _ fuck _ , “How long have you known?”

“Dr. Knox ran your blood after you left the morgue on Sunday, just to check some things. It pinged back a match for Ho-- for the Fullmetal Alchemist.”

Izumi seemed resigned to not liking a single goddamn thing that came out of Mustang’s mouth, “Did you just say ‘morgue’?” She asked, “Why were you in the morgue?”

“I--” His first instinct was to lie; to save her the pain and the panic and the knowledge that their world was a lot scarier than they’d originally thought. But, fuck, could he lie to her again? Even to protect her?

“He died,” Mustang decided for him. 

For once, Ed was grateful. 

Ed had not expected to have his dirty laundry aired at six PM on a random Friday, in front of the dingiest bar he’d ever seen and his adoptive mother. Ed had not expected to have his dirty laundry aired  _ ever _ .

Mustang had claimed that he needed to be able to trust whoever he aligned himself with -- to Ed it just felt like a flex, the same way that pinning him to the wall back in his classroom had been. He was stronger than Ed, he was faster, and he knew enough that he could ruin his entire fucking day without having to work for it.

It took them another twenty minutes to explain the whole ‘monsters are real’ thing to her, though she seemed less surprised than she was just completely fucking  _ done  _ with it all, which, fair. 

“So, the person who attacked you was a werewolf? Don’t people who survive werewolf attacks turn  _ into  _ a werewolf, in the stories?” 

“Not always,” Ed eyed a spot between Mustang’s shoulder blades as the other man pushed open the door. He knew fire was Roy’s  _ thing  _ but he was wondering if it was possible to set someone on fire by sheer will.

“Guess we’ll have our answer in a few weeks, either way,” she said and Ed shoved his elbow into her ribs before following Roy into  _ The Devil’s Nest _ .

The whole place reeked of smoke and old beer and the wave of smell was so strong that Ed had to reach up and cover his mouth and nose with the sleeve of his coat. Had anyone ever cleaned the fucking place? 

“Smells more like the Devil’s asshole in here,” he mumbled to Izumi. 

“Brat,” she mumbled back, “Sig and I have actually been here a few times. There’s a woman who works behind the bar who can actually beat him at pool.”

“Martel,” Mustang supplied, “she’s Greed’s right hand. Also a chimera.”

“A  _ what _ ?” Ed thought back to Lab 3 and Nina Tucker, “Human chimeras?”

“One of several that aligned themselves with Greed instead of working with Bradley, yes.” With all of the confidence in the world, Mustang strode straight to the bar and knocked his knuckles against the wood until he caught the bartender’s attention. The man -- almost as big as Sig with the bushiest sideburns Ed had ever seen -- scowled fiercely at him. “Hello,” Mustang said pleasantly, “My name is--”

“I know who you are,” the man grumbled.

“Good,” Mustang smiled, all teeth, “then you can run along and get your boss for me.” 

“No need to fetch me,” called a voice from the corner; Ed spun and glared at the man who spoke; he had spikey hair and wore the dumbest glasses in the entire world and a lot of leather, “I’m right here,” the man stretched out his arms wide, his grin matching.

“Greed,” Mustang settled back on his heels and straightened his shoulders, “glad to see you’re doing well.”

“No you’re not,” Greed answered back, “Izumi, I thought you had better friends than this?”

“I’m with the blonde,” she said, jerking her chin in Ed’s direction, “you know I can’t stand the military.”

Greed raised his glass to her, “Amen, sister. Roa! Get the woman a drink, on the house.” He took a moment of consideration before adding, “One for pipsqueak, too.  _ Virgin _ .”

Ed bristled; “I’m a  _ professor,”  _ he hissed, “I’m more than old enough to drink if I want to.”

Raising both eyebrows, Greed dropped his head to rest on his curled knuckles, “ _ Do _ you want to?”

“No,” Ed shrugged, “but that’s not the point.”

“Touche,” Greed’s gaze slid down Ed’s… everything… appreciatively before turning to address Mustang, “so, what has my delinquent little brother gotten up to that would bring  _ you  _ here,  _ General _ ?”

“Attacked a human in the middle of Central,” Mustang answered, gesturing to Ed, “ _ this  _ human, to be precise.”

Sunglasses sliding down his nose, revealing startlingly purple eyes, Greed’s grin widened slowly until he looked like the cat who had gotten the cream, mouse,  _ and  _ canary, “Well,” he said, “isn’t that interesting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dont ask me about eds backstory i dont fucking know bitch anytime someone says 'i cant wait to see what happens' im just like ME TOO THE FUCK

**Author's Note:**

> blah blah my tumblr is pansexualorgana come say hi [here](https://pansexualorgana.tumblr.com/)


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